The Impossible Knife of Memory(48)

“Wait.” He stepped in front of me. “Can we back up? You’ve never visited a college before?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Not even when you were in middle school, like on the way to a band competition or something?” Finn tilted his head to the side a little, like he was confused, like he couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t include college visits on the way to band competitions.

I’d given him bits and pieces of my peculiar life, but colored softer and funnier than they had been. I’d painted my dad as Don Quixote in a semi, on a quest for philosophical truths and the best cup of coffee in the nation. I’d explained Dad’s craziness with the ax as a rare night of too much drinking and avoided the subject ever since.

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Your dad never took you?”

I wasn’t going to ruin the day by discussing my dad’s parenting style.

“Go to the library,” I said. “Absorb the dork energy. I’ll find you when I’m done walking around.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Am I really being an *?”

“Yes.”

He stared at the students walking up and down the steps for a moment, absently nodding his head like he was having a conversation with himself. Finally, he took a deep breath and exhaled hard.

“Please forgive me, Mistress of the Blue.” He rolled his right hand in front of his belt buckle, then swept a low bow in front of me. “This day shall henceforth be dedicated to your education of all things related to, but not exclusively concerning, this institution of post-secondary, ivy-choked, divine education.”

“Rise, knave,” I said regally. “Rise and let the merriment begin.”

Finn was right; we didn’t need a tour guide. He’d memorized every inch of the campus from the website. He showed me the new behavioral sciences building, the athletic center, where one vast room was filled with treadmills, each with its own television monitor, and a massive swimming pool, and a student center filled with people who looked impossibly comfortable and happy. When he told me the number of books in the library, I didn’t believe him, so I asked at the reference desk, and the dude showed me a screen with a summary of their collections. It made me so faint I had to sit with my head between my knees for a while.

Better than all that was the simple act of walking down hallways where classes were being held. We lingered by a few open doorways, catching random bits of lecture and arguments about Kant and Indonesian history and bonding equivalencies and scansion and King Lear. We peeked through the windows into lecture halls and argued about whether a board filled with symbols was physics or astrology.

Finn gradually transformed from Grumpasourous maximus into my hot, skinny, almost-boyfriend. (I hadn’t decided if I was using that word yet.) We used our coupons to buy lunch and sat underneath an ancient oak tree in the middle of the quad feasting on subs, chocolate milk, and a peanut butter cookie the size of my face. Halfway through the cookie Finn lay back in the combed grass with a sigh.

“Nerdvana?” I asked.

“Not yet, but I am slightly less despondent. You were right. It was a good idea, coming here.”

The bells in the clock tower boomed. I pointed at a dude riding a skateboard from one end of the quad to the other, typing on his phone. “You really want to be like him?”

“If he’s here on a full scholarship and majoring in political science, I’d give my left nut to be that guy. Maybe minus the skateboard.”

“Then go,” I said. “Be nice to the admissions receptionist and ask if you can get an interview with somebody. Anybody. Give it your best.”

“But if I get an interview and apply and get in, what do I do then? And worse, what if I apply and they turn me down?”

“If they can’t see that you’re perfect for this place, then they suck. And if you’re smart enough to go here, then you should be smart enough to find a way to pay for it, right? Now go.”

I watched until he’d disappeared inside the red stone castle (practically skipping), then I stretched out on the cool grass. This was not hallowed ground. It was dirt, brown dirt, crawling with ants.

I found the college’s website on my phone and looked up the application. Stupidest thing ever. How could filling in a bunch of blanks and writing a fluffy essay about the “moment of significance” in my life let them know if I was good enough to go here? The other essay prompts were just as bad:

recount an incident or time when you experienced failure.

reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea.

discuss an event that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

Who wrote these things? What the hell did they have to do with how smart a person was or how ready she might be for college?

I tried to hop on the school’s Wi-Fi because we couldn’t afford the data charges. The passwords I guessed (welcome, guest, wanderer, spoiled, nerdvana) failed, which pissed me all the way off. I wanted a map so I could find a some shortcut to get home.





_*_ 52 _*_

I gave Ms. Benedetti a Swevenbury Owls pencil at the end of fourth period the next day.

“What did you think?” she asked. “Want to go there?”

I snorted. “No way.”

“There are lots of scholarships,” she said, her forehead wrinkled into the earnest lines of sincerity.